The present invention relates generally to inspection and reporting processes, and, more specifically, to a system that guides inspectors through the collection of asset-specific inspection data in the electronic format necessary to support and expand ecommerce.
Auctioning and selling of items over the Internet has rapidly expanded the market for used merchandise, and the number and types of consumers making purchase decisions based on electronic catalogs is increasing in tandem. A sellers' ability to provide up-to-date and accurate information on items being offered for auction or sale or type of commercial transaction has become extremely critical to achieving maximum value and decisive buyer satisfaction.
Historically, the asset inspection process and subsequent reporting processes involved in the asset disposition industry have been inconsistent, slow, manually intensive, and prone to human errors. For instance, a typical inspector would examine an asset and then record his or her findings, at best, on a paper-based form. Data entry personnel then subsequently process this information to assemble an electronic collection of data on the complete inventory. In many industries, such as the automotive industry, it is also necessary to link this data collection process to multiple industry-standard sale channels. This often results in redundant data entry efforts because each sale channel may have a unique data format requirement. Thus, there is a need in the art for a system that can quickly capture business-critical data, such as asset inspection information, and other data associated with the asset, and store the data into an electronic format where the data can rapidly and automatically be converted to interface with many different systems.
Traditionally, data collection devices used in the manual inspection process are limited to paper, pen/pencil and photographic devices, such as a camera. Raw data collected by inspectors must undergo a labor-intensive conversion process into an electronic format that can support eCommerce. The inspector forwards hand-written inspection results to data entry personnel for processing, where it can take on the order of hours, or even days to process an individual hand-written inspection form, depending upon the industry, number of inspections forms created, and penmanship. Data entry personnel may communicate back and forth with inspectors to decipher the information, and when the inspector is not available, the information is “interpreted” to the best of their ability. Images captured by a film-based photographic device are processed, individually scanned or transferred into a computer, renamed, integrated with inspection information and saved to a data repository on the Inspection Facility Host System. The typical embodiment of the data repository is a database application that resides virtually on a centralized, distributed, or other computer device on a secure network with controlled access to the Internet.
Thus, a heretofore-unaddressed need exists in the industry to address the aforementioned deficiencies and inadequacies.